


my mouth waters to be fed

by ineachandeveryway



Category: The Sisters Grimm - Michael Buckley
Genre: Angst, Denial of Feelings, F/M, First Epilogue Compliant, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineachandeveryway/pseuds/ineachandeveryway
Summary: “Family friend,” Sabrina had told him the one time Puck showed up at her door, when she was still in undergrad, and the look that the latter had given her when she said that is still plastered in her mind, haunts her sometimes when she’s back in Ferryport Landing and everyone asks after the two of them, like they were only ever meant to enter the town again together./ Or, Sabrina and Puck live in the same city. They don't talk.
Relationships: Daphne Grimm & Sabrina Grimm, Puck Goodfellow & Daphne Grimm, Puck Goodfellow/Sabrina Grimm
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	my mouth waters to be fed

**Author's Note:**

> This is a piece I wrote for the Holiday Exchange event over on Tumblr! I haven't written for the fandom in a couple of years, but hopefully I've still got some spark and ability to capture the dramatic, angsty vibes between these two. I thought it would be interesting to explore Sabrina and Puck reflecting on the unison of movement to their dynamic that they're unable to share with anyone else, especially in contrast. Sabrina misses the chaos of Puck being in her life, while Puck misses the order of Sabrina being in his. The events are set three years before the first epilogue, so both of them would be twenty-two. 
> 
> Title is taken from ["Always in My Head"](https://genius.com/Coldplay-always-in-my-head-lyrics) by Coldplay. Also, a big thanks to [Amy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coerulus/pseuds/coerulus) for beta-ing, you're my life saver! As always, comments are appreciated, and I hope you enjoy!

At first, she doesn’t think it’s weird. 

Puck officially ascended to the throne at twenty-one; he’s had more important things to do in New York than watch her walk down a platform and graduate, or witness her open her acceptance letter to law school, or help her move into the brownstone that Bradley’s parents have set aside for the two of them as they attend Columbia together. 

Sabrina knows internally that he would never show up for the last event, regardless of his duties, but she still wonders if she might have convinced him had he bothered to answer her texts and calls, or actually been present whenever she made periodic trips to Faerie’s headquarters itself. He’s supposed to be living in the same city as her, barely a few miles away, and yet somehow all he manages to do is escape her wherever she goes. 

It’s aggravating. 

Daphne tries to tell her over coffee one morning that all of this is an extension of her need to be in control, to know at all times where every member of their family is physically so that she might wake up and go to sleep with true peace of mind. It’s her little sister’s way, Sabrina supposes, of trying to reframe the dilemma such that it won’t tip off the man in the other room that his girlfriend still pines for someone he’s only ever met once. 

“Family friend,” Sabrina had told him the one time Puck showed up at her door, when she was still in undergrad, and the look that the latter had given her when she said that is still plastered in her mind, haunts her sometimes when she’s back in Ferryport Landing and everyone asks after the two of them, like they were only ever meant to enter the town again together. 

“Maybe all of this is payback,” she mutters to herself, idly stirring the remains of her smoothie with a straw. It’s been a month since she moved into the building that towers around her, the high plaster walls utterly white and devoid of color. It’s a normal look for a normal home, and they have color-coordinated furniture, and their friends who come over say that harmony in a home is a sure sign of marriage, and the rest is history. 

Why she spends all of her time worrying about someone who doesn’t know the first thing about keeping a home or maintaining a relationship is beyond her. She and Bradley work well together. They pass the salt and pepper without asking and move around each other in a bathroom without so much as bumping elbows. 

It’s bliss. It’s quaint. It’s just fine. 

Bradley moves behind her in the kitchen and asks, “Payback for what?” It’s Saturday morning and they’re on Labor Day Holiday, and in line with the work ethic that ensured both of them scholarships, their readings for the upcoming week are said and done. The first half of the day is set aside for laundry, sprucing up couches and pillows, and maybe watching a movie together after making homestyle pizza. 

Sabrina grumbles quietly to herself in response, caught between the idea of spilling her guts or refraining so as not to disrupt their routine. She waits to see if Bradley might prompt her any further, holds herself still as he gets a pot of coffee going further along the counter. 

But thirty four seconds go by—they’ve timed themselves before to see who gets the coffee machine up and running faster, for efficiency purposes—and he says nothing. He lets it go. Just like that. He’s the easiest person to be around on account of the fact that he never asks her any questions outside the scope of what toppings she likes on food or if she’s okay with dinner dates on Saturdays. 

“Fuck.” 

A snicker inadvertently escapes him, and suddenly Sabrina is transported back to a house filled with nothing but laughter, and she aches for it. Bradley makes his way back to her from the coffee machine and presses a gentle kiss into her hair, says tentatively, “Is this something requiring a Daphne intervention?” He’s fond of her little sister and prone to asking her to stay the night on days that she drops by. Sabrina appreciates that. 

“It’s date night tonight,” she replies, not knowing why. They’ve got a curtain-enshrined table reserved at the French place four streets over, and although Sabrina has never really needed to survive on Michelin star food, there’s an advantage that Bradley’s finances and connections afford her rare curiosity. He loves to spoil her, and he’s never patronizing about it, and sometimes she just likes to imagine that she lives a normal, New York elite life. 

“I haven’t touched base with Mom in a while, I could take her instead.” 

That amuses her just a little, and Sabrina puts on a happy face and fakes a gasp. “Ditching me for the parental unit so easily, O’Connor? That’s a warning sign if I ever saw one.” Bradley laughs again, louder this time, before gently knocking their heads together. 

He looks at her, and she looks at him, and then they’ve got this staring contest going on that’s all focused and quiet, and all of the thoughts in Sabrina’s head are simultaneously screaming at her because no other noise exists to blot it out. Her sword is tucked safely away under a floorboard Bradley has no knowledge of, and the closest case of criminal Everafter activity is miles away. 

Puck, evidently, is good at handling matters within his own sphere of influence. It’s a miracle that he hasn’t rubbed it in her face already. Maybe he would have if they’d done the work together. 

The thought burrows into her like a knife in between ribs, and a part of her realizes that if she goes home today and pours all of her frustrations out into Daphne’s arms, it will feel worse. To indulge in the degree to which she misses her boy king would be akin to the knife twisting, and that’s a sensation that she doesn’t want to feel again, ever, closure be damned. 

Sabrina breaks her gaze away from Bradley’s and shakes her head, smiling. He’s good to her.  _ Really  _ good to her. She could almost love him for it, almost love the fit of a brownstone into one uniform street and the fact that she comes back to a door that opens just with one key. It’s normal. It’s hers. 

“Nah,” she says quietly, looking him in the eye again, “I think I’ll go.” 

* * *

Puck looks his brother squarely in the eye, scrunches his face up at the brow in an attempt to look more cross than quizzical. Barely two hours into the start of the day, and he’s already being asked to do things he very willingly signed up for a year ago but nonetheless loathes actually tending to. Every other day it’s some domestic dispute or a disagreement between species or Mustardseed trying to explain as quickly as possible the necessities of attending monthly Everafter balls. 

Today’s obstacle falls neatly into the latter category, and Puck stifles a groan when his younger brother refuses to let up with holding the latest invitation in front of his face. It’s a secluded evening affair, only meant for the elite of Everafter society in New York. Evidently, the fruits of the past decade’s efforts aside, connections are still something that demand to be made for Faerie’s benefit. 

“To my understanding,” Puck speaks up, “we had decided last week that matters of this quality were more suited to your talents. You’re clean, you’re charming, you’re—what’s the word—elephant?” 

Mustardseed snorts. “The word is ‘eloquent’, Your Majesty.” Puck could almost throw a paper weight at him, once for the vocabulary correction and twice for the addended title. He isn’t used to being called by what’s meant for him anymore, not after years of lighthearted derision and endearing nicknames from members of his old family. 

The crown is something he came into of his own volition, but everything required of him under its guise is so difficult to accomplish when no one understands the way that he thinks. He isn’t used to orderly affairs or having to ponder on word choice when meeting with potential sponsors to finance infrastructure. 

The Puck of ten years ago remembers flying willy-nilly and shrieking senseless commands above the heads of two sisters, particularly one who acted like she hated his guts but secretly understood him better than anyone else. Mustardseed is kind and loyal and smart, but he does not banter. He does not argue. He does not yell. 

He isn’t Sabrina. 

The brothers get along with each other more than most residents of Faerie would expect, but there’s still plenty that goes over their heads by way of misunderstanding. They don’t function so much as a unit as they do a ball and chain, and sometimes the ripples of unrest that stem from that drive Puck mad every night before he goes to sleep. 

It isn’t supposed to be this hard at this point. He’s twenty-two years old, he grew old for her, and he’s learned about the world. He can’t be blamed for expecting it all to fall into place. 

“I have no one to escort,” he tries, lamely. It’s a direction their conversations have veered in before, and Puck is never very fond of the outcome. His brother has some nerve asking him to show up at her door and ask for something like that when she’s got another man behind her, in boxers and smelling of aftershave. 

Bradley O’Connor is handsome, not in the way that most Faerie are, but in the sense that he’s just fine for a human who happens to be Caucasian. His ears aren’t pointed and his eyes don’t glow and he doesn’t know how to play a pixie-attuned flute, but Puck supposes that’s part of the appeal: normalcy. 

“All the better for your marriage prospects,” Mustardseed supplies, and then Puck really throws a paper weight at him, one easily dodged on account of the fact of flight. The glass ball shatters into a million little shards against the far wall, and belatedly he remembers that Daphne brought this by, as a present from Sabrina for his twenty-first birthday. 

He hasn’t seen her in two years, hasn’t bothered to act like his phone works or that he’s free for a drink downstairs at the Golden Egg whenever she swings by. Daphne is sworn to secrecy on that set of little white lies, the younger Grimm sister hardly a stranger to her best friends’ avoidance tactics. 

_ It’s not going to kill you to tell her you’re bazonkers about her, you know. _

That’s what she tried to tell him the last time she was over, but Puck is a little smarter now, and he knows how to redirect. Before long, the two of them were talking about her collection of neo-vocab, and surprisingly, Daphne let him take the conversation there, despite her looking at him a little sadly all the while. 

“I’ll go,” he says sourly, returning to the present moment, “if you never speak of that again.” Mustardseed frowns but gives a grim little nod, resigned in the end to his older brother’s strange machinations. Although it goes unsaid, the thought doesn’t pass them by: that they’re unsuited to run a kingdom together, that someone is missing to fill in the space. 

The specter of Veronica Grimm has hung over their head in years past, and maybe it’s expected that her elder daughter’s would, too. Both resolved, both well-spoken, both capable enough of rough-housing to handle Faerie’s dark dealings and pull them up from the muck. The chaos of this world is one fated to be put in order by a Grimm, has been since the Everafters gathered their belongings and crossed the sea. 

Puck just wishes she could admit to it before he has to. He’s gotten tired of playing tug-of-war with her for ten years, with only the emotions in play and no physical artillery involved. A part of him always thought that growing up meant the distance in between would be smaller, but it stretches for miles in a city they share together, and that’s caught him off guard. 

“You’ve still got meetings before that,” his brother pipes up, persistent as ever. Puck leans back and cracks his neck, then looks around the haphazard station of his desk for a broom and dustpan. 

“You go,” he murmurs, eyes on the glittering mess of glass across the floor. He can hardly remember what the contents were supposed to look like. “I’m right behind you.” 


End file.
